At the foundation for defense and democracy, he addressed the armys recruitment efforts and preparedness to do with existing and emerging Global Security threats. This runs one hour. Welcome to the foundation for defense of democracy, a special welcome to our viewers online and those watching on cspan today. I am the founder and president , and i am pleased to welcome you to our event today, ruthless prioritization, the armys defense strategy. We are honored to host acting defense secretary of the army, ryan mccarthy. As secretary esper and general millie highlighted in the army Posture Hearing earlier this year, the army confronts a Global Security environment that is increasingly competitive, and volatile. We see great power adversaries working overtime to erode americas military power and threaten our interests and those of our allies. In light of these challenges, and to support the National Defense strategy, the army has achieved commendable progress on readiness, but in a vision and reform in the last couple of years. But the threats remain significant, and the budgets remain finite. F there isdd much more work to do and thus there is much more work to do, and fdd stands ready to provide help in the effort. Instituteesearch focused exclusively on National Security and foreign policy, we are nonpartisan and accept no funds from foreign governments. Would never have and never will. This event is hosted by fdds anter which six to promote on bipartisan basis and understanding of the policies, National Security strategies and range of diplomatic defense, intelligence and government capabilities necessary to secure the united states, its citizens and its allies while preserving. Eace, promoting prosperity and advancing american influence our experts dds centery with f on cyber and Technology Innovation with the goal of integrating all tools of American Power to achieve Better Outcomes for america and for our allies. Fdds longeatures war journal, on my journal which provides an online journal which provides reporting and analysis on ongoing conflicts as well as professional development and Research Opportunities for active during military activeduty military personnel. Fdds alumnirt of network. We are led by Lieutenant General h. R. Mcmaster who serves as chair of cmpps board of advisors. Brent bowen served as National Security advisor to members of the Senate Armed Services and senate armed committee, and was an active duty u. S. Officer. During that time, he was both a blackhawk pilot an assistant professor at west point, probably not simultaneously. The board of advisors includes former secretary of defense leon panetta, former u. S. Senator kelly ayotte, general Edward Kardon and other leading thinkers. Todays program is. One of many we host throughout the year. For more information on our work and our areas of focus, we encourage you to visit our website, fdd. Org. Our conversation today will be live streamed and recorded. We will also be livetweeting f dd. And look forward to this conversation and many more to come. Here, thank you for being and i ask that you please send it to cell phones. With thoughts, i turn the microphone over to brad. Thank you. I want to welcome all of you in the audience as well as everyone tuning in online and on cspan. First of all, it is an honor to welcome you serve, thank you for being here, with everything on your desk. I have very grateful that you spend time with us today. The plan today is to give the secretary an opportunity to provide some remarks. A 30d i will engage in minute discussion of and open up to you all for questions. Lets get started. You should have bios in your seats or other table when you came in. I will be brief. ,. Ryan mccarthy is the acting defense secretary of the army. For about two years, he served as under secretary of the army, civilianrmy Senior Assistant and principal advisor on matters related to the management and operation of the army, including development and integration of Army Programs and budget. Prior to that, he worked on capitol hill and in various editions in the pentagon. Served into 2002, he the army including in deployment to afghanistan. He also served in Operation Enduring freedom. I suppose his experience as a soldier will ensure his commitment to making sure that our oreos have everything that they did. Would you like to make any comments. Thank you. We were actually texting with his son backstage, who actually just graduated from the university of chicago and will going to the infantry at fort running this fall. He is testing as best for fortng this fall at benning this fall. He was texting us from italy. Aad, i have known him over decade ago in afghanistan, we have worked together in the past and it is a Good Opportunity for me. Thanks to see you again. For us, a lotity of transition in the department and still transitioning. I will have to go through the Senate Confirmation process this fall but just over a week ago, general james will assume the duties of former chief of staff formal chief of staff of the u. S. Army. We are externally blessed to have an officer with such a great breadth of experience. Injured during background, he was a g1. Theres not a portfolio across the army that the general does not have the extraordinary depth, experience in combat operations, but also operating and maintaining complex weapon systems. With the efforts underway of modernization, still having it hundred thousand troops deployed in over 40 countries, we have nobody finer to be a senior officer. General martin who will be the vice chief, another x is nearly talented officer another extraordinary officer. They are very excited about that. I have the Senate Confirmation process coming down this fall and i am anxiously awaiting to again. Ugh that from a transition standpoint, we are very blessed with more and moving out from the desk to the vice, general mcconnell was the vice chief. We have all had experience with each other and we are managing a very unique transition. With our secretary going to be secretary of defense, our chief going to be chairman of the joint chiefs, a lot of movement in the corridor. When we have worked very hard on his remaining focused on the priorities we have set as an institution. What you will hear us talk a lot about more here in the future is our people. Investing in our people so that they can reach their potential but also taking a very hard look at how to manage challenges we face with suicide, Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment, the types of things that tear away at the fabric of organizations like the u. S. Army. We are a people organization. We have been focused on our priorities. We have been on a very unique years. In the last two we have conducted one of the most extra to marry management restructuring changes extraordinary management changes,ring restructuring our enterprise where we bring all the stakeholders together. We have the chief unity of command all under one roof. Two years ago, we started a process of looking at how we conduct modernization, and what does it take to reduce the span time to develop requirements, to experiment with a prototype chesem, and ultimately tran of capability in the field of formation. Historically, it would take us about 20 years to fill the capability into a formation. 520 years to get the requirements, five years to test it, another 10 years to buy enough of the capability to field an organization with over one million people. It is like having a 19yearold kid that can throw a 100 miles an hour fastball but it dont make the majors until they are 39 years old, in professional baseball terms. It took too long to bring Relevant Technology to the field and make it, have it utilized information. When we went down this process, we knew we had to lock in against investment priorities, look at where all the stakeholders work in the institution and how they were spread across different large organizations, Army Commands or headquarters in departments of the army. How, do we reduce the time spent because it really was a business problem. How do we make a decision . With speed over time, we realized we had to put on enterprise to be leading this effort. We created the army features command, a fourstar entity putting it on par with the three other major army command. The organization is working shoulder to shoulder with them. With all the problems we have had in particular with the armys challenges for Technology Development in the last several decades, with the discipline of sticking with requirements, you have to make up human very quickly and stick with it and then develop the technological roadmap where you can cycle in new increments of capability over time. But you have to have the same discipline like automotive fractures and others where auto manufacturers where you have to wait for an increment to come in later, you can stop the production line, change your mind and then come back around. It costs money and you lose time , and the constant fluctuation confuses vendors you are working capabilities. P so we have empowered the Requirements Committee to through different policy changes and directives. We created the fourstar organizations and put it in the city, of an american because we needed an organization that would help us to across academic and business and work sidebyside in the development of capabilities. Over time, we developed longrange precision fires, nextgeneration combat vehicles, aviation platforms, network, integrated air missile defense, soldier lethality, which spans across all the fundamentals of shooting, moving, armor and equipment of an individual soldier. In these investment portfolios are confirmatory efforts synthetic training and precision and navigation timing, and things of that nature. There are systems across these investment portfolios that will have, that 80 of the budget for the u. S. Army. Then as we continue to fall from budget, we the 25 will have over half of the procurement dollars going to these Signature Systems. And we crossed over that 50 mark. Along with the organizational construct of putting an enterprise leader to drive requirements, we went through a series of budget exercises starting in fiscal year 2018, then in the 2019 fiscal year, the 2020, and now as we head into 2021, is working with osd for our budget, there has been a massive shift in starting to invest in the future. If you were to look at the 2024 build up alone, there is about 67 billion worth of opportunity across theness fiveyear defense plan. So the army has made a massive change in the way we are doing business, and also investing future. Our with the 2018twin 19 budget, there was a huge uplift to get their predictable, sustainable funding. We know we have a budget deal on the table in the fall, and the fiscal year 2021 deal is also great, it will be very helpful. Slowly have to recognize there will potentially be a continued toolution as they try smooth out the specifics of the fy it is important we get the deal done20. In the early fall because the challenges will come back in the system. Continuing resolutions creates uncertainty and create a lot more conservatism. In the business world, the fluctuation prevents them from investing, slows down production lines and create mass confusion. So we will work hard with congress to get the deal done in the fall. What will eventually happen is from 20182021, you will see 4 budgets in a row where the u. S. Army was very specific, and put its money where its mouth is against the 31 signature priorities. The challenge is that you will see a lot of these prototypes landing this fall and next spring or summer. Song will work and some will not. For the leadership in the army in particular, we have to otherscate, to onsd and that as long as you can learn from the prototypes and a just and work with these vendors, we can continue to progress and bring new capability into the system. A lot of people will be watching to see if we made the right that have you gone to quickly, to see, if you make the right quickly . You go to but over time i think we have a lot of success with this. We will work very hard on the requirements of these prototypes. Will haveudget deal the funding required to keep the production lines moving to create these prototypes. We will test them in the field very vigorously and that will be the window where we see opportunity, where we can start buying large tranches of capability and Start Testing them in units at larger scale. That is really the Tipping Point where i believe of how we will be successful as an institution in this modernization effort. So a very important 1824 months ahead of us as we face this modernization effort. Is not all about material, a lot of it is the operating concept you apply against these new weapon systems. Calledy has a concept multidoMain Operations, we have taken the air battle we use for decades and now we are applying cyberspace. And how will that change we are applying space and cyberspace. A lot of that is the doctrinal concepts we develop and put into these formations. We have what we call our doctrine, training, materiel, bringing all these pieces together so the team operates as one. Changing the operation costs will change our structure overtime. Working very hard at that, at multidomain taskforces and other types of formations that will help us look at ourselves and how we will operate in the future. So this is in extra dinnertime for the army. Months, getting an opportunity to come to venues like these, we come to we learn from all of you. We get the help from academia, business, think tanks and others. It helps us sharpen the approach and a just over time. So i appreciate the opportunity to be here and look forward to the conversation. Thank you for the comments. You mentioned transitions. Obviously, the army is going to a big transition now and you are a part of that, transitioning from undersecretary to act as secretary. You are confirmed in the senate. For those not versed in the workings of the u. S. Senate, that means it was unanimous. City had the unanimous support to be confirmed as so, you hadry the unanimous support of a confirmed as undersecretary. How do you think about your transition from one role to the other . Those two depositions are obviously very different. It is very difficult. Day,ay you approach each i love working with details and issues, taking hold of certain portfolios. Largelyr had me drive the budget in modernization and Reform Efforts. Job,ing gears to that youve got everything. So the way you approach the day, your behaviors, everything is different. You have to adjust. I have seen it already with general mcconnell, he is already made the adjustment very quickly. He has asked ordinary experience in command positions. So it is making that adjustment and checking and editing yourself each day in how you approach every meeting, and every engagement with privates, sergeants, general officers, it doesnt matter. It is a big adjustment. I will have to rely it my teammates and ive got wonderful once. Excellent. A member of our board is ambassador eric edelman who i know sends you who i know knows you and respect you and sense his regards. The Commission Found that the u. S. Is confronting quote a crisis of National Security, warning that u. S. Might struggle to win a war against russia. A or people might be scuttled to hear that theres bipartisan independent group of experts would come to such a conclusion or some might view it as fear mongering and undue alarmism. Do you agree without finding . Obviously, we have made strides, but what do you think about our to defend ourselves against china or russia . If we were to fight them today, it was fundamentally change our way of life. I think we would win, by the challenges the trajectory of their investments and the energy in theire growth National Security space. It is breathtaking. It is very focused. So it has the attention of serious opinion makers like ambassador edelman. We are trying nds to live and breathe that as army. In the they have grabbed a hold of this and recognize that it is a longterm facing threat to the united states. You can see whether we have invested, organized, the way we approach multidoMain Operations as a force, we are putting our shoulder to the wheel to ensure we can stay ahead of pace and the input to deal with that threat. Thank you. It seems to me that one of the central challenges or questions for the dod broadly or perhaps for the army is how do we shift as the nds says we should toward greater competition with russia and china while also addressing persistent threats from iran, terrorism, north korea as well. How do we walk and chew gum at the same time but also address these persistent threat in the middle east . I think it is a couple of things. That had to be very clear you have to be clear about national object is what are we trying to achieve, how do we compete against our peer competitors worldwide . Aggressiveo be as with every dollar and focused on every dollar we invest in the enterprise. It is, where can you take risk . For the army, while we continue to grow albeit modestly, at about 2000 yearoveryear, we still need a lot of people. The challenge was that is we have to continue to take grow. After train and have units ready. 65 to 70 of our balance sheet. So youre very fixed at what you can invest against. He used the word ruthless earlier. We work and we will continue to be. Every Investment Program comes with the best teacher. We will have to virginie to cut programs that are not the highest priorities. Nice court as the army staff, night court as the army staff quite it a few years ago, obviously did have a sense of humor, we will continue that. That is the Reform Efforts that dr. Esper and general nearly put us on i will keep doing that for years to come. Brad based on the contributions of the army since 2001 in iraq and afghanistan, it seems the army appears to be the surface facing the largest adjustment and moving from a focus of counterinsurgency and Stability Operations to this Great Power Competition. How do you think of that adjustment . Are there things we can learn, best practices we can learn from those tough experiences in iraq and afghanistan that apply to the gray zone conflict with china and russia both inside the middle east and beyond . Because conflict with china is not just in the indo pacific am a it is a global competition. Mr. Mccarthy that conflict is not going away, we saw that with vietnam, demand will remain for decades to come. Under general millies leadership, we focused on institutionalizing the hard Lessons Learned which you referenced into organizations that will advise and assist operations worldwide. These are second command opportunities for officers and senior enlisted folks. The Second Opportunity for them, so they are all seasoned personnel. Were institutionalizing those behaviors and what were doing is trying to protect the large formation we had to break up excuse me, to support these efforts and focus their readiness against competitors. We have that across all the particles, from training to Center Rotations where they do the larger collective work, going from individual to the large collective. Brad the armys role in deterring russian in europe seems clear to me, that pivotal role the army plays. Curious, what role do you see the army playing in the indo pacific in terms of deterring china . About a people focus on the maritime and air aspect of the navy and air force. What is the armys role in the indo pacific and what is the delta you see . Do you think we need an indo pacific for the army, and how do we close that gap . Mr. Mccarthy within two or three wars in the last century, we were all in the ground over there. We will have a role if something happens. In the greater competition space, advise and assist capability will be critical with allies and partners throughout the region. We will work hard with our partners throughout the region, and what long range, electronic warfare, there is a lot of capabilities we can bring forward and a variety of formations, whether that is we just had brigades train in thailand, the philippines, so we have increased our presence not only from units that have been assigned to that part of the world, but domesticbased units that have been brought forward to conduct exercises. The work general brown has done the last few years has been remarkable, looking at how the army participates in the Pacific Pathway exercises. We have increased our presence and will do more of that in the future. Brad my former boss is chair of the readiness committee. My sense in full deference to you is that in 2017, the army was confronted a readiness crisis confronting a readiness crisis largely due to sequestration, habitual reliance resolutions, all things largely though her out of the armys control but yet they work victims of. What are your top readiness concerns, what worries you at night about Army Readiness . What are you most concerned about . Is one place i am most word, it is not readiness. If you were to go from two years ago where we had two brigades at the highest level of , it is a to 25 today testament to the performance. The generals gave it an infusion of funding. The other is also focus in leadership. Whether you are talking to a battalion commander, they all understand the metrics. They are laserfocused and doing what they need to do. I am very proud of the games, but these are games that can i am very proud of the gains that have been made, but they can slip through your fingerprints. The key for us is sustainability of a time. Demand remains high. Funding challenges could be. Slapped dependent upon where things go with the challenges we face with trade and others. It was difficult getting to this budget deal. Funding is a key variable to the equation. The work we do with congress is critical. Brad what are the armys Top Priorities for the fiscal year appropriations. What are the top things you would like to see and what will be the consequences if we didnt get those in the bill . Mr. Mccarthy we made about 186 tough choices we trunk waited we truncated 93 programs and terminated others. We made very hard choices to include we have basically said that we are going to buy another five brigades and we are walking away from the bradley and will introduced the next generation combat vehicle into the formations. On the chinook helicopter, we have halted the buys for the conventional force. We will continue to buy the black 2s for the special operation force. Working very hard with 2 partners in particular to continue the buys for the chinooks, and looking potentially a doing it with some other partners. So we will keep the supply lines robust, but we are divesting weapons systems. Legacy systems from the past in order to create the trade space in our investment portfolio so we have enough money to pay for this stuff in the future. Especially when we have to start scaling it across the institution. A lot of the work in fiscal year 20 is this shift. If the money gets reinserted and we dont accept the proposals, we will have pressure on our Investment Program. We look very good heading into september. We will work really hard to commit kate and make sure everyone understands what were the square we are trying to take of investment portfolio in particular. Understand where we are trying to take the investment portfolio in particular. We havey the gotten bipartisan support from congress, they are very pleased with the progress that has been made. The place we hope to get more support from congress is on housing. Are looking hard at the budget and what we can do to continue to perform better in that space. We are doing very well we are very blessed,. The Leadership Team worked very hard across the army to communicate with every committee and jurisdiction in particular and countless briefings to ensure that everyone understood what we were trying to do. And for the members that may have been affected in their districts, they worked very hard with us to understand it and saw the ways in which we were trying to mitigate challenges. We got a lot of support, so we are pretty blessed. Brad as you know from your experience and as i saw often, service will invest something to clear budget on investment for an important investment priority. A particular state or district aircraft, and congress will intervene and prevent about toiture received prevent that divestiture. What would you say to those constituents in terms of the consequences if the army is not able to invest, in you dont think you have the money you need to modernize and get ready for Great Power Competition . Mr. Mccarthy that is a lov rouh conversation. But there is tremendous opportunity that is coming to bear because of all these investment decisions. An uplift ofhad investment from topline to support this ambition. But theres just so much to go around. We can maintain all these other systems. As i mentioned, there is north of 55 billion of opportunity that is presented. The companys, districts or states that have been affected also have vast opportunity to win new businesses. In many cases, these are theness decisions by leadership of these corporations and there is a recognition that they have the talent, they have the protection lies in the systems in place, it is just developing new products. If you think of 186 of these types of things, we narrow it down to about one or two. We are working back and forth with congress. We work very hard to communicate with them. Introduced a process every we monday night where we have a ceo and sit there with a Leadership Team and have dinner. After a while, you realize we have gone through 25 or 30 companies in the process and keep having more sessions like this. Communication helps a lot. We show were more opportunity lies. These are all great companies. They see where the opportunity is and make the adjustment. Brad seems to me that the for me, we want the money to modernize, and it is important for americans to understand that. What in addition to discussions in Conference Committee about individual programs, there will obviously be discussions about the topline number. Toplineious, at what funding number would be army be under what to implement the National Defense strategy . Mr. Mccarthy if we hold flat, we have 182 billion. And that includes oco. If we stay flat in the out years, our buying power starts to reduce. I think it was secretary mattis and general done for testified about maybe a year and a half ago and they talked about the 3 inflation, real growth do required. Why you see such aggressive efforts on reform. Topline of achieve a that magnitude, we are going to have to find ways to claw back 10 billion, 15 billion a year in the department of defense to be able to finance both readiness and modernization in particular because we will start to stall out. In the armys case, we are performing the analysis right the 31 Signature Systems i referenced before are starting to look like they have the makings of a system we want to bring in to formation where you take the prototype and start to develop large tranches of capability, we are going to need in itsney, to scale it relevant timeframe and to be a way to deploy with them. 22,ou look at fiscal year is amazing, you know, we are finishing 20, we are working on 21 and were already starting work on we do budgets every day. 22. When we look at that, the choices the department of the army will have to make from 2226, we will have to find more money for the modernization effort under current assumptions of being flat. I dont have the number today because we just havent performed enough rigor against it. But the type of reform behavior will be necessary under flat conditions. Brad i would just not that the independent congress in early mandated group, the National DefenseStrategy Commission experts, they believe the dod growth to 4 real gdp to implement the National Defense strategy. It seems to me to be tough to do that under a flat budget. If you were to get one additional dollar above the smys the dod budget request, where would you spend that dollar . Mr. Mccarthy probably the modernization portfolio. We are yielding a lot of progress in particular, so for general murrays command, we were able to reduce the requirement process which is normally taking us 57 years. He can crank out fully loaded, theirements documents to doctor who will release the rfp to vendors in about 18 months or less for complex systems. We reduced the spending time it takes to make a decision and turned to the contractor and say, the me prototype helicopter armored vehicle, machine gun, and reducing this span of time is the speed of the order for business. Reducing that cycle time to achieve a sale, that is great for American Business and great for us because we will get it sooner. We dont spend millions of dollars talking to ourselves and moving paper backandforth to try to make up our mind. The speed at which we can bring these capabilities forward will help us change. Between the materiel and the work that general marries command is doing in multidoMain Operations, that is how we will transform the army. Mr. Bowman last question from me before we go to the audience. The National Security strategy and the National Defense strategy and the Army Statement from earlier this year all emphasize the importance of allies and partners. When i think of china, one part i think of is taiwan. It is a bit specific. Would be interested in any update you might provide and if there might be a way to deepen and strengthen the exercise because giving them weapons is one thing. Readiness and capability depends on training and exercises. Mr. Mccarthy they are part of the Pacific Pathways exercise. And abramsing on sale across taiwan. I heard the other day we are announcing a potential pursuit of inaction of an f16 deal. Working very hard with that partner. The participation is robust. Mr. Bowman i welcome questions from the audience. Please wait for the microphone to come to you. Ase introduce to you please introduce yourself. If youre are able, please stand up. Right here. Tom from heritage foundation. Want to talk about recruiting for a moment. 2018 missed the mark, though it was an aggressive mark. Wondering how 2019 is shaping up. I now the army is taking new approaches to recruiting but im , interested in your forecast and how the year will end. And if you project difficulties, i know this is a difficult recruiting environment. Thank you. Mr. Mccarthy i believe we will make it october 1, 68,000 you highlighted the challenge. With 3. 6 unemployment, we have never seen a benchmark like this since 1969. We did not have an all volunteer force in 1969. We do not know how we will do in this type of environment. The other challenge, 17 to country,lds in this about 70 of them would require a waiver. Drug use, the challenges with the law and mental health. The sample size is really small, much smaller. We have been laser focused on that. Things that we have done, we have made big changes to how we are doing marketing. We changed the partner. We moved the team of Civil Servants and personnel, they work sidebyside with the advertising firm. We hired microtargeting market experts to help us with geofencing. Some sophisticated techniques of how to identify and recruit. We are changing the way we message and communicate to the country, we are focusing our efforts in every corner of the country. Our Senior Leaders are traveling to the cities. We are meeting with mayors and superintendents to schools and directors of the parks and recreation. We need Civic Leaders to help us communicate to young men and women and their parents. And find a way to show how the army has 150 different operational specialties. We will help you get an opportunity to get an education and to really have an opportunity to reach your potential. But recruiting is like College Sports or anything else, you have got to get out of your office and look people in the eye, you have to convince them that it is an opportunity and this is the team you want to be on. We have been doing a lot of that. I visited over one dozen cities alone in the last year18 months. We are getting a wonderful reception. We are all volunteer. The disposition of our installations are in a particular part of the country. We have got to get out there. Shake hands and talk to people. We are trying to do that. Mr. Bowman any other questions . In the back. Hi. On sunday, it was announced the navy fired a tomahawk missile from mk 41. What direction has the army been given at this point about fielding a weapon that was previously banned in the imf treaty, and can you give us an update on how you are looking at potentially positioning some of these weapons within the region . Mr. Mccarthy with respect to inf ranges in particular, by now, not participating in the treaty, were looking at where can we first find opportunities. We go down the path of the precision Strike Missile program. Clearly, hypersonics, if you put a ballistics warhead on a hypersonic missile, those would be beyond the inf compliance. Were looking at those opportunities. With respect to deployment, id for to admiral davidson. Mr. Bowman for those who might not be tracking all of this, the inf treaty was august 2. The u. S. Ended that because of moscows persistent longterm refusal to abide by that treaty and would not come back despite a warning period. The commander testified recently that 95 of chinas missiles fall within the median range. Next question . Thank you. Im from south korea. I work at the carnegie endowment. Two quick questions. The chinese are investing on a hypersonics,puters , all of the things you are concerned about. Looking into the future, are you going to work with japanese, south korean, and australian allies in developing next generation systems . Number two, how confident are you that u. S. Forces in south korea will remain . Thank you. Mr. Mccarthy joint investment, those physicians usually fall to the secretary of defense. Michelle works with partners to do that. With respect to the usf k position, i have not heard any different than our current posture. Mr. Bowman any other questions . Yes, sir. Here comes the microphone. Thank you. Reed with the washington examiner. I want to go back to a statement you made regarding if you had to fight china now, it would be costly. Can you expand on that and offer some weaknesses we can see with the army to help make it a little less costly in the future . Mr. Mccarthy it is a country of one billion people. We had tremendous casualties, a tremendous expenditure of american blood and treasure. That was what i was referencing. Thank you. Next question. Great to see you again. Im glad you brought up multidoMain Operations. I truly do believe when we get into competitions to deter and potentially defeat people a china and russia, multito all the doMain Operations, any shooter it will be required to do that. My question is, is there a movement to make this truly work . What were doing with all of that from a joint environment . I hope with mark going out to be the chairman and the secretary going up to be secretary, that that will move in the future. If you could talk about doing what the army is doing but doing it in the Main Operation from a joint perspective, and eventually from a combined perspective, because that is how we will fight. Thank you. Mr. Mccarthy the battle happened because two chiefs sat down. They drove it. It takes senior level leadership to sit down and hammered this out. I am very encouraged by the efforts. Done aeral has remarkable job corralling the navy, the air force, the marine corps above the threestar level. They have been working on this and socializing this throughout the department over the last year. If you hearken back to what it bring air and land battle it took seven years of , back and forth. I think we have the right leadership in the right picture. The air force has come close together with us. We are working hard to bring a lot of maritime pieces together here. There will be leadership changes. Joint chiefs will be set and that is where the work will be done. It will pick up a lot of momentum in late fall. Other questions . In the back, please. Peter wilson. I would be interested to know your comments about an issue that does not seem to be getting enough attention. The potential acute vulnerability of the logistics system and the tactical and operational level, subject to enormous attrition. We have a system built around a modus operani. Made toitions will be moreat a tactical level robust to support the maneuver forces, etc. . Mr. Mccarthy one of the places i think the general has done a great job is, he is really pushing manufacturing. The production of parts, at a technical level, so we can really expand the supply chain, if you will, for formations. We have tied in general mike murrays folks, future command. Increasing strength of these parts so we can put them into our vehicles. We are doing better predictive maintenance. We are doing things to try and improve the local level to consolidate the brigade level to expand the lines of heavier formations. Within the next couple of years. Good to see you, sir. You mentioned focus on personnel, Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment and suicide. How will you ensure the importance you all place on that trickle down to platoon and battalions . Mr. Mccarthy clearly the way we communicate and our presence, but one of the things is the training we utilize, is it effective . Are we communicating the right way to these young men and women . The statistics are going the wrong way. The general and i and other folks have talked a lot about the focus on the squad, the cohesion of men and women to your left and youre right. To your left and right. Are we good teammates communicating with each other . Are we doing simple things together . Leaders within the headquarters, we eat together a lot, we go to the gym together and get to know each other. You have to know your teammates and try to exhibit those behaviors to ensure that, are we being good teammates . Sometimes, Technology Drives you away, and you are buried in your iphone for a lot of time. Go to a restaurant. Family buried in their phones. There is the waiter, and the family of four do not look up at them. We are doing that all over the force and not engaging with the teammate. We have to do something different. Suicide and Sexual Assault, the numbers are on the rise and that is the type of approach we will take going forward. We have got to get better. Other questions . You mentioned the next 1824 months as an important time for the modern eye nation ever. What are some specific benchmarks that you would look at as indicators of success over that time . Mr. Mccarthy i guess ill just walk across the portfolios. For longrange precision fires, the extended range artillery, can we get an autoloader in the next 18 months that works to increase the rate of fire . We have had some success. We fired a wraparound twice the distance. We have gone north of 70 kilometers. We are increasing the range. We have to increase the rate of fire. If you only have an autoloader, we will not get there. Precision Strike Missile. When we do the tests, i think it is next year, are we going to hit 550 kilometers . Can we get on pace to put a sensor payload on so that it can hit a maritime target over the next 36 months . S, are we going to take some tests . Can they hit something . That is the longrange portfolio. We are approaching responses for the fighting vehicle this fall. Can we progress there . Are we going to get people who come in and compete and build some prototypes . Future vertical lift, we will see where that goes. Soldier lethality, the next weapon, i wentd down to fort benning to check it out about a month and a half ago. The prototype, ms was to talk about it anyway, you get the point. The visual augmentation system we are closing in. Those are wickets along the way in development. We are closing in on a capability you can feel. Every time these come forward and there is a test and you see improvement, you are continuing to march down that development continuum. Over time, you get through it. Things are moving very quickly. There will be potential for setbacks. We will have to do our best to stay with them and adjust and get the time to continue to get through it. Mr. Bowman David Maxwell in the back . Fdd. Two questions. On operations, do you think we are given short shrift to human domain . We do not talk about it specifically. Onhave to focus stabilization, operations, influence, activities. Are we neglecting human domain in our operations . Second, in night court, is our rotational Ground Combat brigade going to create any risk . Is that a high enough priority because that is a key element of deterrence, to have significant ground force there. Mr. Mccarthy i am not aware of any change of that. With respect to investment, i do not think we invest enough. I had this conversation on monday. Taking a very hard look at that. It is also how you conduct information operations. I lived this about a decade ago. It is the challenge of op thatng an info crosses multiple commanders to take a shot of how you put effects on the target. We have improved from where we were, but we have to get better and make more investments. Mr. Bowman any closing comments or remarks . Mr. Mccarthy no, this has been a great opportunity. I see there were more questions. I think we will sit with the media here but thank you. Mr. Bowman thanks for those who joined us today and those who tuned in online. To stay uptodate on the work, i encourage you to follow us or head to our website. Thank you. This concludes our event today. Have a good afternoon. Thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [indistinct conversations] [indistinct conversations] journal,s washington live everyday with policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, we will discuss the top issues from around the country are members of congress as they meet with constituents during the august recess. Bradford fish of the Congressional Management Foundation will be on to talk about track records. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern this morning. Join the discussion. Secretary of state mike pompeo delivered remarks at a Un Security Council meeting on middle east peace and security. His remarks focused on iran, which was subject to a United Nations arms embargo lasting until tober 2020. Until october 2020. Sec. Pompeo thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you president. I also want to thank our polish friends for using the Council Presidency to confront the challenges in the middle east. As i argued in january this year in cairo, the Trump Administration is reviving americas leadership role in the region by building and supporting coalitions to tackle regional challenges. These arent talk fests. We care about outcomes, not gestures. We should consider whats been accomplished in just seven months. We help to dismantle isis